Eli5: How did the Romans do complex mathematical calculations with Roman numerals and without using zero?

Question

Eli5: How did the Romans do complex mathematical calculations with Roman numerals and without using zero?

In: Other

Answer 1

Doing numerical operations on Roman numerals was tedious, and in general they avoided it. Instead, if something needed to be summed they would use an abacus. For engineering applications, they typically used geometry, the tools of which were a straight edge and a semicircle and can be done entirely without using numbers.